The present invention relates to photographic apparatus and methods in general and, more particularly, to photographic cameras whereby exposures of self-developable and photographic film are taken simultaneously such that an operator is presented with a self-developed image corresponding to the image captured simultaneously by the exposed photographic film.
Users of conventional photographic cameras are only able to obtain information as to the scene image captured by having it developed by a photo-finisher or photolab. Of course with the advent of instant photography, self-developable film cameras allow a user to obtain such scene information immediately. Despite the achievement of the latter development, there is nevertheless a desire to provide users of photographic cameras with a developed instant image corresponding to the scene exposed on the photographic film to provide a positive proof of the image captured by the photographic film as taught in commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/918,717, entitled "Dual Exposure Photographic Apparatus and Method" and filed on Aug. 22, 1997, herein incorporated by reference and commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/738,772, entitled "Dual Exposure Photographic Apparatus and Method" filed Oct. 29, 1996, herein incorporated by reference. Furthermore, commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/808,040, entitled "Photographic Apparatus and Method" filed Mar. 4, 1997, is herein incorporated by reference. Accordingly, a user can have such information and use it for a variety of purposes, such as assessing the image previously taken.
While dual camera photography exists in which it is known to simultaneously expose both instant and photographic films either with single or dual cameras, there does not exist a photographic camera for permitting dual exposures of both photographic and self-developable films in a compact and economical manner let alone in a single-use camera arrangement.